World map

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Physical world map (2004) with country borders and capitals—click for large, 2 MB version

A world map is a map of the surface of the Earth, which may be made using any of a number of different map projections.

Maps of the world are often either 'political' or 'physical'. The most important purpose of the political map is to show territorial borders; the purpose of the physical map is to show features of geography such as mountains, soil type or land use. Geological maps show not only the physical surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures.

1 Projections
2 Gallery
3 See also
- 3.1 Projections
4 External links

[edit] Projections

Main article: Map projection

Maps that depict the surface of the Earth use a projection, a way of translating the three-dimensional real surface of the geoid to a two-dimensional picture. Perhaps the best-known world-map projection is the Mercator Projection, originally designed as a form of nautical chart.

Airplane pilots use aeronautical charts based on a Lambert conformal conic projection, in which a cone is laid over the section of the earth to be mapped. The cone intersects the sphere (the earth) at one or two parallels which are chosen as standard lines. This allows the pilots to plot a great-circle route approximation on a flat, two-dimensional chart.

[edit] Gallery

Main article: gallery of world maps

Dymaxion projection	Elevation map	Mercator projection	Topographical map of the world
A reversed map, challenging the tradition of north as "up"	A blank political map of the world